Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

“If you don’t, you won’t have to worry about it, that’s bloody sure.” Ceorl laughed again, nastily, showing off bad teeth.

AndSergeantWerferth let out the grunt he used to show his patience had run short. “Powers above, Sidroc, you come home from the war, what in blazes makes you think a nice girl’d want anything to do with you?”

This time, Ceorl practically wet himself, he thought that was so funny. Sidroc started to scowl at Werferth, then carefully made his face blank instead. You’ll pay for that, Sergeant, powers below eat you -and they will. Aye, you’ll pay. It’ll look just like an accident, or like the Unkerlanters got you. Plenty of chances to make that happen.

He went off to a little stream not far away to clean out his mess kit. By the time he got back, his face wasn’t even blank any more. He looked like his usual self instead. If he seethed inside, nobody needed to know it. In fact, Werferth needed not to know it, or Sidroc wouldn’t get his chance. Werferth hadn’t lived long enough for gray to streak his beard by being careless.

“Behemoths!” The cry made everybody in Plegmund’s Brigade who heard it grab for his stick. Sidroc was no slower than any of his comrades. He might want to make something unfortunate happen toSergeantWerferth, but he didn’t want the Unkerlanters to make anything unfortunate happen to him.

Here came the thump of the great beasts’ feet against the ground, the rattle and clank of their chainmail. Panic seized him-the noise came from the east, from the direction he’d thought safe. If Swemmel’s soldiers had managed to bring behemoths into the rear of Plegmund’s Brigade… If they’ve done that, we ‘re all dead men right now, and I won’t have to worry about killing Werferth because they’ll take care of it for me -and they’ll get me while they’re at it.

Then somebody let out another shout, this one holding nothing but relief: “They’reour behemoths, powers above be praised!”

Sure enough, the behemoths that tramped into the clearing had Algarvians atop them. The redheads looked as nervous about encountering the men of Plegmund’s Brigade as the Forthwegians did at their unexpected appearance. “You boys look too much like Unkerlanters for your own good,” one of them called.

“Your behemoths look too much like Unkerlanter beasts foryour own good,” a trooper retorted.

Sidroc nodded, but then hesitated-that proved true only at first glance. It wasn’t only that Algarvian behemoth armor differed from what the Unkerlanters used. But the behemoths themselves seemed different. After a moment, he figured out how and why. “They’re young beasts,” he blurted.

An Algarvian on one of those behemoths heard him and nodded. “If the world were a perfect place, we’d leave ‘em on the farm for another year- maybe for another two years,” he said. “But the world’s not perfect. Ready or not, they’re got to go into the fight.”

Thinking back on all the behemoths Algarve had left dead on the field on both sides of the Durrwangen bulge, Sidroc nodded. True, the Unkerlanters had also lost a lot of behemoths there. But Unkerlant seemed to have plenty left. The same didn’t hold true for Algarve.

“Er-whereis the fight?” Sidroc’s company commander asked. He should have been left on the farm a while longer, too, but here he was.

“Didn’t they tell you?” asked a fellow on behemothback, and the young lieutenant shook his head. So did the behemoth crewman, who went on, “We’re supposed to make sure Swemmel’s buggers don’t cross over the river line. What do they call that river? The Fliss?”

“No, the Fluss,” the Algarvian lieutenant said. “But the Unkerlanters already have a bridgehead on this side.”

Now the men on the behemoths cursed. “Nobody bothered telling us that,” one of them said. “It’s a demon of a lot harder to dig them out of a bridgehead than it is to keep them from getting one in the first place.”

That was only too true. Sidroc wondered if the Algarvians would call off the attack on realizing they were walking into a saw blade. No such luck; Mezentio’s men didn’t seem to think that way. Sidroc’s company commander said, “We’ll do our duty, of course.”

“Let’s go do it, then, or try.” The behemoth crewman looked up to the heavens as if he were a Gyongyosian. “They don’t let us know the bridgehead’s already in place? Powers above, sometimes you’d think they really want us to get killed.”

“Forward!” said the lieutenant with Plegmund’s Brigade. He didn’t blow his whistle, which proved he had some measure of sense.

Forward Sidroc went. He’d probed Unkerlanter bridgeheads before. Going after one of them was like grabbing a porcupine. But then Ceorl said, “We’ll better drive ‘em back over the river if we can. If we don’t, they’ll flood men through and swarm all over us. They’ve done it before, the whoresons.”

Sidroc wished he could have disagreed. Unfortunately, the ruffian was right. Sidroc eyed a spot on the back ofSergeantWerferth ’s tunic. Right about there, he thought. Aye, right about there, especially if they drive us back. It’ll look like one of their beams.

The Unkerlanters were indeed on the eastern side of the Fluss, and there in greater numbers than even the men of Plegmund’s Brigade had thought. They had behemoths on this side of the Fluss, too, behemoths that promptly got into a brawl with their Algarvian counterparts and made the Algarvian beasts useless for spearheading any further advance.

“We have to do it ourselves,” Sidroc said bitterly. “Isn’t that how it always works? Whenever they find a tough job, who do they hand it to? Us, that’s who.”

“They’d sooner spend us than their own men,” Werferth said, as he had before. Sidroc came close to forgiving him for that-close, but not close enough.

Before long, the Unkerlanters proved to have enough behemoths on this side of the river not only to keep the Algarvian behemoths in play but also to mount attacks of their own. They lumbered forward to toss eggs at Sidroc and his comrades at a range from which the Forthwegians couldn’t reply. Sidroc went to earth, digging himself in behind a fallen tree. The other men of Plegmund’s Brigade were quick to do the same.

On came the Unkerlanter behemoths, footsoldiers trotting along behind. “Those men on foot should be up farther,”SergeantWerferth said from close by Sidroc, as if the Unkerlanters were his troops. “We’re going to make them pay.”

Sidroc intended to make them pay. He waited quietly in his hole till an incautious behemoth drew too close. Then he flung one of the little pottery-encased sorcerous eggs the Algarvians had been issuing lately. As he’d hoped, it landed right under the behemoth, rolling beneath the animal’s armored skirt before bursting. Mad with pain and fear, the behemoth rampaged back the way it had come, trampling a luckless footsoldier who stood in its path.

Other Unkerlanter footsoldiers started blazing at Sidroc when he stayed up too long to admire his handiwork. Werferth knocked him down. “Back in your hole, sonny boy,” the veteran said. “We’ll need you next time around.”

“Right,” Sidroc said. “Thanks, Sergeant.” Only after the words were out of his mouth did he remember how angry at Werferth he was supposed to be. He shrugged. He didn’thave to do anything about it now. If he decided he still wanted to later, he could take care of it. He’d have more chances. He was sure of that.

LieutenantLeudastsprang to one side, away from the wounded behemoth that now ran wild, far out of its crew’s control. Trailing blood, the behemoth thundered west, back toward the Fluss River. It would keep spreading chaos through the Unkerlanter bridgehead till its injuries made it fall over or till someone finally killed it.